For the Glory of Love
by Equestrienne Dreams
Summary: In which Scott and Hope curse a bit, and kiss a lot, and want each other really quite very much a lot, and maybe figure out that something a bit deeper than just 'wanting' might be in play, after all.


"Well," she says, and she's half giddy, half breathless, and all scared out of her skin as she collapses against the rough brick behind her. "This is me."

He eyes the brick, the bay windows, her flushing cheeks. "Nice place."

"I like it." She can't find words, suddenly. "This could. Uh. You - could come up, if you wanted."

It's an invitation that has never issued from her lips before. Not once, not ever. She'd never thought it would.

His jaw drops, and again he looks a bit like a poleaxed ox. He stares at her, mouth opening and closing, and something inside her curls, tight and defensive and aching with old pain, old rejection. "Unless you don't want -"

"Hope." He cuts her off, a little too rough, a little too harsh, a little too... needy? "I would have to be spectacularly, rainbowtastically gay to _not_ want." Now she's the one staring. "Like, stupidly, ridiculously, Liberace levels of gay, okay? Gay to the point of absurdity. Gay to the point of - "

"Scott," she says, around the hysteria bubbling up in her throat, because it's so _him,_ so stupidly absurdly _him_ and she can't quite breathe, can't - "Shut up," she says, and hopes the _and kiss me_ is in her eyes instead.

It is.

"Oh, thank God," he breathes, and takes her mouth before she can make another sound.

She whimpers, more than a little, when his arms close around her. For all his ridiculousness she has seen this other side of him, the serious side, the devoted side. The alpha male side, she thinks a little dizzily, as he presses her back against the brick, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other cupping her cheek with the kind of tenderness that would make her cry - _is_ making her cry, she thinks, _oh,_ as a tear traces down her cheek and he makes a sodden little noise and abandons her lips, just for a moment, to kiss his way up the arch of her cheekbone, wicking the salty liquid away with his tongue. She nips at his ear, tries to kiss the corner of his eye as her fingers tangle in his hair, and he groans, presses his hips against hers, hard. She can already feel herself opening for him, doesn't give a damn that they're on a public street and people are beginning to stare. Doesn't even notice it in the hot crush of his thigh between hers, in the ridge of his erection digging into her hip, in the way she arches toward him, wanton and aching and _wanted_ for the first time in far, far too long.

Eventually he tears his lips from hers, buries his face in her shoulder and pants, just pants, gasping for breath. Her fingers card through his hair, almost absently, relishing the silky slide of his curls, even as her knees shake, even as he kisses at her collarbone. When he looks up again his eyes are bright, wild. Starving, she thinks, and the icy, lonely, untouched part of her she'd never even known existed before she met this man thaws even more.

"You are going to be the death of me," he rasps at last, and raises a hand to block her as she moves in to kiss him again. "Don't," he warns, "just don't, Hope, or we will never get up those stairs, because I won't be able to stop and then you will _actually_ kill me."

"Yeah," she says, breathless, helpless to stop the smile. "I actually would."

Their eyes meet and then they're laughing, helplessly, holding each other up as the giggles erupt out of them in hysterical, tearing gasps.

When they've laughed themselves breathless he looks up at her again, hair mussed, that lopsided grin on his face, and she can't help herself. She kisses him, hard, fast, lets herself _have_ it until he gets over his surprise and starts to melt. Then she pulls away, tugs him toward the door, and doesn't even protest when he crowds up behind her, pressing against the curve of her ass, his hand coming around her waist to flatten over her abdomen. His breath is hot against her ear, teasing kisses fluttering at the nape of her neck, and she grinds back against his hips, hard and seeking as the door slams shut behind them.

"How far?" His voice is muffled against her hair as he drags her back against him, and only the need to get somewhere with proper privacy has her tugging away.

"One flight," she promises, and he grabs her hand, tugs her up the stairs. She thinks he'd carry her if he could, but they're both too far gone, unsteady enough on their feet as it is without unbalancing him that way, so she just rides the wave of _wanting_ until they're finally inside and she can lock the rest of the world away.

"So," she says, hanging her keys on the hook, and turns around to face him. "This is..."

Her voice trails off, just dies away, when she sees the way he's looking at her. He looks like... like he could eat her _alive,_ his eyes hungry, his face stricken.

"Get naked," he blurts, short, sharp. It's a command, not a request.

Her knees give out from under her.

"Whoa," he says sharply, and lunges to catch her. There's no trace of the smile now, just his eyes intent on hers, his hands palming up under her shirt to cup her breast through her bra. Finally she gets her legs steady beneath her, and one look at his face confirms that she doesn't need to explain what just happened.

"Bedroom," he says, in that same, flat voice, and a tendril of fear starts to curl in her stomach.

One look in his eyes - at the tenderness, the sweetness, the _caring,_ the start of something that just might be love - and it vanishes as though it had never existed.

She's on the bed before she realises it, shrugging off her blouse, tugging her camisole over her head, shoving her skirt down her legs. By the time he follows her through the door he's naked to the waist, has kicked off his shoes, and she makes a beckoning motion with trembling hands when he starts to fumble at his belt.

"Mine," she says, and rests her forehead against his chest as her fingers tug at leather. He curls over her, hands tangling in her hair, hugging her against him, and she can feel the quiver in every muscle of his body.

He is as far gone as she is, maybe more, and surrender to his passion is its own kind of heady, giddy power.

Finally she pushes his jeans over his hips, follows with his boxers, and finds herself shaking as she presses kisses to the flat of his abdomen.

"No." He pulls away but he sounds _wrecked,_ his eyes clouded, his hand brushing helplessly at her face, her shoulder, her hair. "Not now, sweetheart. Not unless you want this to be over before it starts."

 _Oh,_ she thinks, and desire pools like liquid fire in her stomach.

Thoughtless, hardly aware of what she's doing, she lays back on the bed. Her fingers curl around the rails of the headboard, a firm, cool anchor against the frothy whirl of desire, and she spreads her legs in mute, unmistakable invitation.

He's on her before she can blink, his mouth between her thighs, and she keens, hopelessly lost, arching into his touch without shame or regret. He curls one hand around her hip but not for long, because she takes one hand off the headboard, twines her fingers in his, and clings to it with all her might as she loses herself in desire. He grips back just as hard, just as fierce, the pressure of his fingers a blessed counterpoint to need so heady it's almost frightening.

 _Would_ be frightening, she thinks with an odd kind of peace, if it weren't for the clutch of his hand in hers.

When the orgasm takes her, a long, hot ripple that leaves her glowing, she bares her throat to the moonlight and keens to the sky.

"One more," he murmurs, and kisses the inside of her thigh. "Come on, sweetheart."

She _shouts_ as he drives her over the next peak, his free hand curling and stroking everywhere that works and one place that works _really, really well,_ his tongue sliding betwixt and between until she can't remember her own name. This one comes ten times faster and a thousand times more powerful, breaking her apart until she is nothing but singing nerves and a high, keening scream she doesn't recognize as hers. "Scott," she sobs, her chest heaving, and moans in relief as he kisses her full on the mouth, so she's licking the taste of herself from his tongue.

"I've got you," he says, and if his voice is unsteady, the certainty isn't. "I've got you, Hope."

"Take me," she says, and means it. Means it so much she thinks she'd be crying if she wasn't already, because she has been gasping for this, aching for it, from the first time he looked at her with that crooked grin and stupid, floppy hair and unbearable kindness in his eyes.

"He'd rather lose this fight than lose you," he'd said, but she thinks he might have also meant _I'd rather die than lose you_ too _._

"Look at me," he says, gasps really, one hand cupping her cheek, tilting her chin so her eyes meet his, and his voice is that intoxicating mix of authority and _god-i-can't-believe-i'm-here._ "Look at me, Hope. Look at me and tell me you want this. I won't be something you regret in the morning."

"I couldn't regret you." Somehow, she's clearheaded enough to get the words out. "I want this. I want _you._ Just you." Dizzy with it, she shakes her head. "I think it's only ever been you."

He closes his eyes, something almost like pain rippling across his face, and his hand tightens on her shoulder even as she tilts her cheek into the fingers still cupping her gently.

"Okay," he breathes, and pushes inside her.

He chokes out an oath as she tilts her hips and wraps her legs around his waist, driving herself onto him with single-minded concentration. He grabs her hands in his and pins them by her head, his fingers intertwined with hers, and he's brushing kisses all over her face. It's enough of a distraction for her to surge up and flip him, so he's the one flat on his back staring up at her with a mingling of wonder and _jesus-fuck-that-is-_ _ **so-hot**_ writ large on his face.

That's when she starts to ride him, hips rolling. He's so deep now, his fingers clutching at hers, his eyes fixed to the bounce of her breasts as she grinds down to meet his thrusts and it's so good, so good she has to...

He sits up suddenly, drags her down the bed so he can lean against the headboard as he kisses her desperately. One of his hands untangles from hers to reach between them, touching... her free hand digs into his shoulder so hard she _knows_ there'll be bruises, but neither of them care. His mouth takes hers again, his hand touches her _there,_ and it's all over, bright fire-flower sparks behind her eyes as everything in her seizes, lights up like the Glorious Fourth, and goes weak.

His hips stutter one last time, she sinks down to meet him, and then they slide to the mattress in a tangle of sweat-soaked, sex-trembling limbs and just _breathe._

* * *

Her eyes blink open sometime later, groggy and sleep-crusted. It's still dark out, not even a hint of false dawn. Her pillow is oddly warm, and... oh. She blushes a little as she remembers where she is, who she's with, how she must be a raccoon-eyed mess of smudged eyeliner and ruined lipstick, but there's nothing except peace and sleepy relaxation flooding her as she snuggles closer against Scott's chest.

Fingers scratch gently at her scalp, and she tilts her head up to meet his eyes. He smiles at her, warm and soft, that ridiculous, affectionate, stupidly enamored grin, and her heart turns over in her chest. "Hello, beautiful," he murmurs, and she can't help but smile back.

"Hi." Her voice is quiet, almost shy, and she's unwilling to disturb their little cocoon of peace. "God, you're stupidly attractive, did you know that?"

Okay, so apparently sex with Scott has blown her brain-to-mouth filter to splinters.

He smiles just a little wider, a little more smug, and on any other day she'd hit him for that. But not today. Not tonight, when he's looking at her with something more than wanting in his eyes, when he's touched her where no one ever has, when he's made her fly.

When he's given her a pointed and very effective lesson in the difference between having sex, and making love.

"I could say the same about you," he adds when she fails to come up with a suitably sarcastic remark to cover up her ridiculous sentimentality, and the smug vanishes. His eyes are back to soft, almost adoring, and he rubs at her back, soothing and sweet.

Just as a token, she rolls her eyes. "Go back to sleep," she grumbles, but there's no heart in it, and she doesn't miss the pleased, satisfied, still slightly-befuddled curl of his smile before she closes her eyes and lets his heartbeat lull her back to sleep.

And if she wakes in the morning with her hand pressed to his heart, and slides onto him until they're both shaking and cursing and kissing like it's the end of the world, well. That's all right.

No one's ever going to know but them, after all.


End file.
